AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — A jury has acquitted a 23-year-old man charged in a fatal shooting in a Walmart parking lot in Auburn.

A jury returned not guilty verdicts Wednesday for Gage Dalphonse, of Auburn, on charges of murder and manslaughter.

Dalphonse, who claimed self defense, shot Jean Fournier, 41, of Turner, twice in the back after the two exchanged words and Fournier delivered a punch in a parking lot on July 27, 2019.

Prosecutors said Dalphonse leaned out the driver’s side window of his car and shot Fournier as he ran away.

Defense attorney James Howaniec told the Sun Journal that he’s sympathetic to the Fournier family but said the facts pointed to self defense.

“It was an incredibly unfortunate and tragic sequence of events that evolved basically over one minute in the Walmart parking lot,” he said.

The crime happened in Auburn, but the trial was moved to Superior Court in Augusta because of pretrial publicity.

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